In The Blood
by RavenQuill
Summary: A dark story of the continuing battle between Robin, Raven, and Slade. Back from Hell, Slade works to eliminate his greatest threat, the Titan leader. Featuring: Slade's past, Gotham, Batman, Joker, Red-X.
1. Chapter 1

Hello, my beloved readers! This is my first TT fic, intended to be quite serious, and how can I possibly own the Teen Titans when I don't even own the car I drive?

Reviews keep me going, so if you like the story hook, feedback would really help me tell whether or not people are reading… Slade's POV.

**Prologue**

Even as I stand in the watchful glare of the monitors that serve as my eyes, I feel the sensations. The sensations have an annoying habit of clawing at your mind most fiercely when you are trying to meditate, or assume a state of collectiveness.

The Underworld... At the time, it had seemed a rather inspiring place. But its scars have long since grown tiresome. Even in silence, there is the persistent roaring of flames and the wailing of rotting souls in my ears. There is the sting of sulfur powder on my eyelashes, and the feel of grease on my lips; a sure sign that, somewhere within the vicinity, flesh is burning. They are constant reminders of my passage, and I am forced to shoulder them. Contrary to popular belief, Hell is not a grand hall of brimstone so much as a festering wound to be forever carried and endured. I have earned my fatale ahead of schedule in making a deal with the Devil's undertaker, Trigon. How ironic. I do enjoy being ahead of schedule.

I admittedly regret the absence of my loyal servant, Wintergreen. In light of my disappearance, he masterfully and wisely followed suit. I could track him down, but he is reminiscent of another life, a life when I was less monster and more human.

As I walk before the glass cradling my views of the city, I give a passive glance into its reflecting depths. Rather than spotting my own menacing reflection, I see the Renaissance adornments of a young woman as she slits the throat of another for reasons unknown to me. The girl is abruptly smited into ash as a wall of flame erupts from the bowels of Hell's forges. Upon first realizing my left eye could gaze into the deep recesses of Pluto's domain, I watched the reenactments of the misdeeds and the punishings with mild interest. But no longer. While moderate entertainment, the sudden screams and barraging images are an impediment to my concentration, and a static-like interference in my planning.

I stop before the screen I frequent more often than any other. It is the one framing my view of Titans Tower and its inhabitants. I often wonder how the titans would feel knowing they have such an avid audience, but they would never suspect as such. The titan Cyborg created a rather impressive security system, but predictable in its composition. It had been almost boring hacking into it. I glance towards the window displaying the only titan who's waking and sleeping hours are similar to my own.

Robin habitually paces away the early hours of morning, lost in a haze of complicated thought processes. I can understand his restlessness, for I had difficulty for many years organizing the complexities of my own mind before I learned to detach and eliminate all useless emotions and stressors. To eradicate pointless care and replace it with cold confidence is yet another valuable skill I could have taught him had he remained my apprentice. He could have been the greatest, shrewdest criminal mastermind of all. He's Cyborg without the predictability, Beastboy without the weakness and ignorance, Starfire without the instability, and Raven without the constant doubt. Rather than being blessed with powers, the boy had been bequeathed with a potential for perfection unattainable by those gaining an edge through mutations and abnormalities.

His flaw is his inability to recognize the great gift I once offered. The boy could have had it all. He could've played God in this forsaken city. Unfortunately, that flaw is a fatal one. In my plans to wrap chains around Jump, he is no longer an asset, but an opportunity cost and the only real threat to my endeavors.

Coincidently, I see the young face of a man mildly reflected in the screen. It hovers neatly in place like an odd sheer mask over the image of Robin's. The young ghost's face, the first I recognize, blanches as a river of blood trickles down to pool below the right eye and eventually waterfall from the high cheekbones. It almost appears as if it is Robin who suffers, and I anticipate a future satisfying in the quantity of titan suffering. My thoughts reach a full analysis of the situation before the black inferno even claims the ghost. How quickly thoughts come unhindered by pointless outside factors… But the Titans are not my first targets. First, I have business outside of Jump that needs my immediate attention.

The game has not yet ended.

The pawns are simply realigning.

And I will be their master.

-- What's old Sladey up to? If you care in the slightest, carry on! And reviewing is a kind gesture that is greatly appreciated!!


	2. The Teacher of the Madman

Hey, everyone! Thanks a ton to those who reviewed; I dedicate this chapter to you guys, so I hope you like. :D

Also: Only the prologue and maybe a few later chapters will feature Slade's POV. All the main ones will be third person. The only plot device I made that isn't true to the series is that I made the staff Robin presented to the True Master in the ep. "The Quest" his own, rather than Katarou's. It was just far easier that way.

Enjoy!

Chapter 2:

**The Teacher of the Madman**

Making the trek to the Peak of Xun Chao Mountain for the first time in ten years, the lone figure felt a sense of nostalgia wash over him. Once, as a young man, he had considered the obstacles placed along its crags to be the most honorable of challenges, but now it seemed almost comical the seriousness with which he had once revered them. Bear, Snake, Monkey… they were like characters nestled comfortably within the pages of a child's book. They were colorful, unassuming… weak. But he could not deny that, for defeating them, the reward had been great. Training with the "True Master" had been a pertinent step in becoming the person he had so desperately dreamed of becoming,_ had _become. But he wanted to be more. The mountain on which he had trained and lived for so long had yet again become a step in his journey to becoming a God, and in order to achieve that objective, he had to be sure of one thing.

The man made sure that the midnight-blue robes that shrouded him against the night had sufficiently concealed his face. Then, he quickened his already brisk pace into the darkness. He had to move quickly if he wanted to avoid the guardians and students posted along the paths, paths he himself had once kept watch over and knew every post and vantage point of. He was confident he could defeat any adversary who should so foolishly interfere with his progress, but he had his unfeeling heart set on only one kill that evening and did not want to waste precious time and effort.

A large main dojo stood proudly and openly at the head of the main path. But it was a strange out-cropping of rock behind it that the man stealthily worked his way towards. To an outsider, it would appear to be nothing more than a sloping ledge that cliffed the mountain, but the tall, dark figure knew better. By walking along the start of the slope for a hundred feet or so, he came to a cut section in the hill where a house functioning as a sleeping quarters was nestled, well hidden. It was a matter of protection: a warrior was most vulnerable while sleeping, and any structure naturally protected on three sides was very difficult to lay siege to.

He ignored the sleeping brats and made his way around to the back of the building. There, a room that served as an office lighted onto a stone courtyard. A single tree stood on the border between light and shadow in the middle of the courtyard, and Slade sidled up to its dark side. He gazed at it in approval: he was fascinated by the symbolic contrast between truth and malice, sanity and insanity. If his alias was any indication, he liked to think of himself as the bridge in between.

He had hardly stepped from within the safety of the shadows before the ring of steel assaulted his senses. He reacted instantaneously, sidestepping out of the way of a _shuriken_ as it embedded itself in the heart of the tree where he had stood only a fraction of a second before. He was complacent enough a man to take a moment to observe the Japanese-originated weapon that was not common-place in the Chinese-Arts dojo. He recognized it as a needle-like _Shirai Ryu_ style, for he had worked with them in the past, and he knew for a fact that, had he not managed to evade it, it would have punctured his nasal cavity and impaled his brain. It would've been a silent, painless death, devoid of all the satisfaction of a rage-killing.

"I was not aware that you possessed killing weapons, Master. I thought your most precious philosophy was always never to kill," he spoke up, in a confident, calm voice to the small silhouette standing at the foot of the steps leading into the quarters.

The small woman who had made the attack elected to not flatter the intruder with eye contact, but stood sideways to him, instead focusing all her attention on administering to a well-loved pipe. She packed it, lit it, took a slow draw from its ornately carved mouth, and for a few moments watched casually as its blue-gray fumes danced lazily in the cold night air. Only after that first cloud dissipated did she bother to speak.

"Killing is not a skill," she said in a deep, slightly rasped voice laced with the wisdom of age and great patience. "I teach only skills here, but trust me: if I had truly intended to kill you, you would be dead."

"I have come to test you on that very matter," he replied, removing the black cloth that covered his face to reveal heavily scarred features and a soulless, black left eye. The right was concealed firmly with a black eye patch. The woman did not so much as bat her peripheral vision in his direction.

"Go ahead; kill me, if you should so wish. You have never hesitated before to take that which does not belong to you," she said, still watching the wafts of the curling smoke ascend ever higher. She sighed sadly and closed her eyes before continuing. "But I must warn you: you were unable to learn anything from me in life; you will certainly learn nothing through my death, Slade. That is what you now go by, correct?"

"You once called me by the name of Tai Zheng."

"I present names only to my students. Tai Zheng was a talented but foolish student who learned nothing and was tragically destroyed by a monster."

"I learned enough to become the strongest of your students," Slade said with a conviction built up of years of esteeming himself with that very belief. The old woman, however, replied in a voice that, though quiet, was far more resolute.

"You are a traitor and a madman, qualities of the weak."

Slade felt his rage growing and his patience diminishing at that statement. The old woman had known him when he was young and unconfident, and had a knack for making him feel thus in his adulthood. It was a quality he despised in her enough to make his next move with reckless abandon. He slid a broadsword from its sheath strapped accross his shoulders, and it glinted evily in the dark.

Slade snarled savagely, making a flying leap to gain momentum in his landing as he delivered a slice from the sword in a glinting arc. The attack would have surely sliced his opponent in half had she not calmly lifted a carved wooden staff to deflect its blow. For the first time she looked him in the eyes, her eyes blazing agelessly and without the slightest trace of fear.

Slade paused only long enough to reposition for another attack. Years of training for this moment had made him inevitably stronger, and he had heard the crack in the wood of her staff from the blow. A few more well placed, and he felt sure it would break.

Making a direct hit, however, was easier said than done. The next five blows she managed to glance to the side, each time delivering a kick to his abdomen or thrusting her free hand towards his face in a bear claw-like form that forced him to take step after step backwards. Soon, he had retreated a full eight feet back towards that fateful tree. He could feel his anger besting him, but this time to his advantage. He summoned all of his rage into an attack that she couldn't glance, but had to instead reinforce a block against with both hands holding the staff perpendicular. The staff splintered, and she sidestepped as his sword sliced through, eventually pinging against the courtyard floor an inch from her feet and causing sparks to fly into the cool air. One half of her destroyed staff flew several yards from them, impelled by the impact of the stalemate, but the other half was clenched firmly in her left hand.

In desperation to bring the fight to an end and closure to his mind, Slade ruthlessly attacked his unarmed enemy. He brought his sword severing the air masterfully parallel to the stonework on which they stood, an attack clearly intended to sever a head from its shoulders, but he was completely unsettled by the response.

The True Master stopped his sword one-handedly with the half-staff long enough to duck and deliver two rapid, fluid motions: first, she pulled a retracted metal bostaff from where it had been concealed in the sleeve of her robes, extending it to strike painfully against Slade's chest and sending staggering back, and second, she let fly another expertly marked _shuriken_ to embed itself in his side, pinning him to the large tree in the middle of the yard.

Slade let out a roar of pain and rage as he made a failed attempt to rip the throwing knife free from his side. Chui-Hui stonily turned her back to him.

"Leave this place," she said in a calm voice that belied the sorrow she felt at seeing what was once so beloved a student having become so utterly mad. "The wound is not fatal. You are not welcome here, not even as an opponent and I refuse to dignify you with another fight." She had begun to walk away when she heard Slade whisper something she had not expected to hear.

"The boy…" She whipped around to search for the meaning of his words only to find him staring at the staff in her hands with a wide-eyed expression unique to the obsessed and disturbed. "The boy who gave you that staff… was here; a _student_ of yours."

She narrowed her eyes; suddenly aware of whom he spoke. "Why should it be of any value to you, those I teach?" she spat, trying to cage her anger. He cocked his head playfully at her.

"Ah, but they are of great value to _you_; the children you were never able to have."

Chui-hui held back a wince at this sudden stab to her darkest and most personal secret. If she believed in regret, she would've regretted nothing more than the day she had trusted that obsessed boy with the black eyes. She gave Slade a look of deep disgust as he began to laugh with unrestrained mirth and insanity. He ceased his laugh suddenly to successfully rip the _shuriken_ from his side and hold it before his face, studying it with an alight expression disturbingly similar to that of a small child observing a seashell.

"How I love an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone," he said slowly. The True Master remained on her guard, for a madman's actions were a surprise even to he who executed them. Slade continued, having resumed his usual cold, impassive voice and demeanor.

"I will indeed leave this mountain, but you _will_ fight me again. You see, I propose a challenge you cannot refuse: A race to the boy who gave you that staff." Chui-Hui's eyes widened in shock at this unexpected statement. Slade's eyes bored into hers.

"The boy has been a perpetual thorn in my side since the beginning, but I have thought of a grand game to play, and here are the rules: if you reach the boy first, you may fight me to defend his life. If I reach the boy first," -he brandished the blood-soaked blade- "then I shall use this to carve out his still beating heart, and then you may fight me to avenge his death. Either way, I shall know… I shall finally know who has chosen the true path to becoming the real True Master."

The sentimental woman's heart was beating wildly with fear for the life of one of her students, but she managed to find her voice. "He is strong," she said. "One of my most accomplished students ever; even superior to what you were. You will not succeed in destroying him."

"I suppose that's a risk you're willing to take." And with that, he leapt away from the tree and down the steep slopes of the mountainside. Chui-Hui attempted to follow him, but all that she could make out in the moonless darkness was the blood-soaked tree and the single golden, gleaming eye of an owl that looked like that of a halved mask.


	3. Siege of the Tower

Yay! The Titans _finally_ appear in the story …

Chapter 3:

**Siege of the Tower **

All throughout Titans Tower, agonized screams could be heard as they reverberated against the steal bones of the intra-structure. They were recognizable as the pained, desperate screams of an individual facing the most horrible of sights and circumstances in their lifetime. Beast Boy screamed once more before finally gaining control enough to speak.

"It's… it's"-

"Five-meat chili, baby!" Cyborg interjected, hefting a pot of a bubbling, multicolored substance and sporting a pink 'Kiss the cook' apron. Beast Boy caught a single downdraft of the concoction before keeling over onto the floor, faint and moaning.

"Please, this 'Chill- E' is some form of torturous ritual?" Starfire spoke up, peering at Beast Boy's prone and twitching figure in confusion.

"Only if you're BB," Cyborg responded, shrugging. He proceeded to dip a metal whisk into the pot. There was an odd noise like a choked growling, and when he pulled the utensil free it had been reduced to nothing more than a charcoal appendage. He shook the handle and watched with a satisfied grin as the charcoal erupted into a small pile of ashes onto the floor.

"Oooooh, just like Grandma used to make!" he said and scampered off to grab a few bowls that wouldn't disintegrate upon contact with the concoction.

"I'm beginning to wonder if maybe you and I had the same paternal Grandmother," Raven muttered, glancing up from her book long enough to raise an eyebrow at the lethal dish. Indeed, she thought it looked like something out of one of her spell books.

Beast Boy recovered enough to get on all fours and drag himself towards where the pot sat on the counter. Holding his nose, he placed his pointed right ear against the belly of the pot.

"I think I can still hear them! The poor animals are still suffering!" he cried. Deliriously -or so it seemed to Raven- he began shouting at the pot.

"Don't worry! Just hang on; I'll save you, I'll" -he made the mistake of letting go of his nose and, inhaling another waft of the chili's stench, he turned a sickly shade of gray before keeling over once more. Fortunately, Starfire revived him by splashing a melted blueberry slushy that had been in the fridge for a suspicious number of days in his face. He sat up.

"Thanks, Star," he said, sputtering and, no longer green nor gray, but blue.

"You are most welcome. Despite giving rather unpleasant chilling sensations to the cerebral cortex in my past experiences, I have observed that frozen sugary products normally invoke positive reactions in residents of this planet," she said, smiling kindly.

"I don't know what you just said but thanks," he responded, getting up and sufficiently wrapping his head in one of Raven's knitting projects to block out the smell of chilly. Raven's personality had mellowed out a great deal the previous few months –obviously a result of having the burden of an apocalypse lifted from her robed shoulders- and, rather than becoming angry as she normally would have, she merely gave him a heavily sardonic look.

"You look like a terrorist," she said before promptly returning to her book. Beast Boy gave her a sulking expression through his turban crocheted with briars and dark birds in flight, but he didn't have the opportunity to retort before Cyborg returned bearing dishware.

"All right, y'all, so who wants to try my chilly?" he asked beaming. Raven and Beast Boy seemed to sink further into the back of the main room, but Starfire cautiously accepted a bowl, holding it as far away as her arms would allow. She gave its steam a timid sniff.

"On my planet, such dishes are used to test the endurance of warriors. It seems… inappropriate to partake in such delicacies while participating in a ceremony as casual as the 'hanging out,'" she said gently. Cyborg just grinned all the wider in his enthusiasm.

"Aw, that's just because you don't have any crackers yet!"

"I see," Starfire said, nodding, though there was doubt in her voice.

"I think Silkie ate them all," Beast Boy spoke up, his muffled voice sounding hopeful for the first time since the idea of chili had reared its ugly head. There was the banging of cupboard doors, then-

"Silkie!" This time, it was Cyborg's anguished, high-pitched shriek that rang through the control room. Sure enough, there was a very swollen moth larva lying in the bottom of the dry goods cupboard, and with watering eyes like those of a man who had just eaten far too much in a bad Thai restaurant.

"Silkie!" Starfire exclaimed, mimicking Cyborg. "I thought you were napping in Robin's room!"

"Apparently not. Does this mean no chili?" Raven inquired, her normally deadpan voice sounding slightly hopeful. Cyborg recovered from the devastating blow that was a lack of Ritz.

"Nothing can stop the chili, baby!" Cyborg exclaimed. "Tell Robin to get his paranoid butt down here. The villain reports can wait till later; it's Chili-Time!"

"Leave him alone. He's sleeping. Something he hasn't been doing enough of, lately," Raven muttered the last bit more so to herself. Through her mental link with Robin, she could often feel the lax, jumbled thought processes that were telltale the signs of sleep, but lately they had been too often replaced with the signs of a person pacing relentlessly back and forth. Stress, aching muscles, inconclusive thoughts; none of it was healthy, and she was starting to get worried.

"He hasn't been sleeping again?" Cyborg asked, slightly concerned, his chili tirade abated for the moment.

"Not enough. He has something on his mind, but I'm sure of what it is, yet."

"What do you expect?" Beast Boy spoke up, his voice still muffled by the turban. "The dude was raised in Gotham, City of the Insomniacs! There are _grocery_ stores there that don't open until ten PM."

"It also has as many rain fogs and cafes as Jump has sunny days and pizza places," Raven admitted dreamily after elbowing the changeling in the gut for the insensitive insomniac comment. She blinked as if a thought had just occurred to her. "Can we move there?"

"With all that rain, Cyborg would probably rust in an hour," Beast Boy quipped, even though he didn't know whether or not Cyborg could actually rust. Rather than getting a laugh, however, he just got another jab in the ribs for the insensitive metahuman comment. And this time it was from Cyborg, so the green titan was sent flying over the couch and nearly displaced his head wrap.

"Hey, where's Star?" Cyborg questioned as Beast Boy spat out his left sneaker, a bizarre result of his awkward crash landing that even he could not explain. Starfire had slipped out so quietly that none of the others had noticed her do so the moment it had been mentioned that Robin was not entirely well.

--

Starfire stood awkwardly outside the door to Robin's room, unsure as to whether or not she should proceed. She wanted to check up on him, but she also did not want to risk waking him. She felt it would be unfair to wake him just to quell her own worries.

"I shall be brief," Starfire told herself before placing her hand on automatic motion sensor. It triggered the door opening mechanism that released with a soft whoosh of air, and she popped her head inside the darkened room.

Robin was deep asleep, his hair mussed and the blankets and pillows tossed to the side. He appeared so peaceful that Starfire wondered why she had ever really worried in the first place. It had been her intention to merely look to reassure herself he was well and then leave, but she was unable to resist floating over to recover him with the blue bedspread. She didn't notice as the door closed silently behind her.

Submerged in darkness, the alien girl soon found herself sitting on the edge of his bed, her smiling face resting on the palm of her hand as she watched him sleep. Her eyes cast a green fluorescence bright enough for her observe his features by but not bright enough to cause him to stir. She thought him so handsome, striking with his light skin and dark hair. Without realizing it, she reached out to gently caress the skin around his mask with her index finger, hoping that it would somehow give her some indication of eye color. With the thumb of that same hand she outlined his lips, the same ones she had kissed when they'd first met, then in Tokyo, and a few times since then. She blushed thinking about it.

Suddenly, she whipped around, her heart racing. She could've sworn that she heard a familiar low chuckle, deep in the dark, echoing metallically as if stifled by a mask. She bolted up from her sitting position, and then her heart nearly exploded out of her chest at what she saw next: a single, glowing eye in the far side of the room. An eye whose cold gaze she would never forget.

Without thinking, she summoned her righteous fury into a starbolt aimed dead-on at that hated image. Letting it loose and watching as it effectively demolished her target, she was shocked to find that the result was an intricate, building web of green light that imploded into a shattering downpour of crystals. Cold fear gripped the Tamaranian's heart before the glass fragments even managed to land, tinkling like chimes, on the carpeted floor. Robin's room had mirrored walls…it was a reflection… he was _behind_ her!

She whipped around in time to receive a high voltage shock from an angry looking electronic device wielded by a shadow. The attack sent pain surging up through her spine and neck, and the aftershock pelted her several feet and into a mirror that had yet to be shattered. The noise of the crash rang through the room. Starfire's alien blood meant that she wasn't badly hurt, but she was dazed enough to have no defense against the shadow lurking up and seizing the opportunity to finish her.

She was saved from a finishing blow by Robin, who had woken immediately after the first crash. Getting a quick grasp of the situation, the teen leader rushed forward and seized the dark figure around the neck and by the elbow, flinging the would-be-killer over his shoulder and across the room. Slade flipped over in the air, landing feet-first on a desk and demolishing it before skidding backwards a few more feet.

"Hello, Robin," he said simply and coldly. "I hope you are as eager as I am to make this our final encounter." And with that, he leapt up to deliver a flying kick. Robin caught Slade's foot in his arm, ducking and rolling to avoid a second kick by the other foot. He reeled to avoid a punch, responding with an uppercut of his own under his opponent's chin and crossing his other arm across his body to deliver a punch to the older man's ribs. He finished by kicking Slade hard in the chest and propelling him to the other side of the room.

He rushed over to Starfire, who had recovered from the previous onslaught. "Robin, the Tower!" she exclaimed. He looked around to notice the room had gone into a full panic. Lights flashed and alarms sounded from every angle, causing a momentary confusion. It was a lockdown that hadn't been initiated since the last time Slade had been in the Tower, in the form of a ghost. Robin knew it as a fact, because he was the one who had initiated it the last time. He didn't know how, but Slade had managed to hack into the Tower's systems, just as he had managed to break into the Tower.

"Come on!" he said, grabbing Starfire's hand. As much as he wanted the end of Slade, nothing good could come from fighting in a cage. He and Starfire bolted for the door as the steel began to fold down over it. Robin targeted it with a freeze disk, the ice cramming the gears long enough to buy them a few seconds. Starfire managed to make it outside the room, desperately yanking him along behind her, but he let go of her hand at the last minute as pain laced through his neck and back. The jam broke free, and Robin fell to the floor. He saw her expression of horror as the steel shield came between them, keeping each outstretched hand from the other.

--Whew! That was a pretty long chapter for me.

Thanks to Tokyo Blue, TeenTitansLover1, jasmine-leigh, WildCat9221, and Unleash The Shadow for your wonderful reviews!


	4. The Scars of the Past

Thanks to everyone who reviewed! You guys are awesome!

Chapter 4:

**The Scars of the Past**

Robin yanked out the forked pins that had been released from the tazer device and embedded themselves in his arm. He then took a quick breath to quell the fear that threatened to envelope his mind. Were it the first time he had fought Slade, or even the second or third, he would've been the usual epitome of courage and recklessness that he had become so famous for. But the incident with the reagent infiltrating his central nervous system, making him feel, hear, and see Slade's haunting illusion, had left a scar. A scar so deep that even Raven, who understood his every waking thought and emotion better than anyone, could barely see it for it was. It had been a nightmare come to life, when it had happened. He had been completely shut off from his friends, they able to neither reach him nor believe him. He had doubted himself, doubted his _sanity_, while locked in a battle he couldn't hope to win. Being that alone and in the dark had traumatized him on some level.

And now, his current situation was eerily similar. He was trapped in a cage with Slade, the flashes of rotating lights and shadows confusing him as they had before. But there was a titanic difference this time around: no amount of light would make this ghost fade away.

Getting to his feet, he turned to face his demon just as he had always done, had always been taught to do. A moment of understanding seemed to pass from his masked eyes, the only feature of his face he kept secret, to Slade's cold gaze, the only feature he was willing to reveal. It was a bizarre, metaphorical mirror as each gazed at what they, at one point or another, had had the potential to become. Their coexistence presented a mental doubt that could only be killed through the death of one.

Robin made the first move, rushing forward to aim a punch at Slade's masked face. As he had anticipated, Slade dived to the side and seized his wrist, preparing to pull him forward and elbow him in the stomach. Robin didn't allow the attack to follow, through, and seized his opponent by the wrist as well and threw him into the air and down several feet away. Slade's comparably greater size and weight meant the teen wonder wasn't able to throw him very far or quickly, so he rapidly knelt to deliver an onslaught of electric disks.

But Slade was a dangerously efficient learner, and he had had many opportunities to learn the patterns with which Robin fought. At the same exact moment, he hurtled an explosive device of his own, and the weapons met at midpoint. All exploded on contact, sending wafts of pale smoke curling along the floor and obscuring both figures.

Robin tried to use the screen to his advantage, as he knew Slade would. Flattening himself up against a wall, he tried to remain as still as possible while listening for some indication of his enemy's moments. With any luck, Slade would become overconfident and leave an opening for Robin to catch him off guard.

He heard it: a small breaking of glass as its fragments were stepped upon. The silence deepened even more so than before as if Slade himself had realized his mistake, but Robin's ears had already pinpointed the noise's location in the room. He threw a birdarang on mark, but Slade's hearing was just as accurate. Catching the whistle of the projectile's progress through the air, he struck out with the heel of his hand, flattening the weapon against an adjacent wall and reducing its exterior and inner mechanisms to pieces and fragments. The force of the blow caused the smoke to disperse, revealing Slade and Robin to each other again. Each attack simultaneously.

They exchanged blow after blow, very few meeting their mark. Most were caught, stunted or blocked, each predicting the other's movements. For a few moments, they remained evenly matched. Robin extended a retractable staff, and Slade matched the move. Robin felt more in his element, for even as a young kid he had excelled in fencing and the like. But when Slade raised his weapon to deliver a mighty downward blow, lights flashing behind him and silhouetting his raised arm and menacing two-sided mask, the younger fighter found himself suddenly frozen.

_When Bruce tried to explain to him that Harvey Dent was "insane," Dick had difficulty comprehending the levity of facing a criminal who had passed into insanity. Did it mean they would mutter to themselves, get lost in their own hideout, or see everything as a joke? He didn't understand. Dick rushed into the fight against Two-Face overly confident, and, when he and Bruce became embroiled in a trap, he soon understood the true essence of psychopathy._

_It was to retreat within yourself; to feel nothing externally. Love and pain, attachment and understanding, compassion and consequence… none of them applied to the psychopathic, who could register only anger and desire and the most animalistic way possible to satiate both. _

_Two-Face did everything in twos. When Robin had severed the noose of the kidnapped official with a birdarang, he was horrified as the man was dropped into a second trap: a trapdoor into water. The man had drowned. And the boy's "punishment" for interfering had been a double-edged sword: As Two-Face beat him half to death, Batman suffered as well. He was restrained by chains, forced to watch it all happen._

_Robin had heard Batman's desperate shouts and pleas to be the one beaten, to let the boy be freed, but the blows didn't let up. He went from being the Batman's confident, wise-cracking ward to a nine-year old kid as Two-Face took a bat to his arms, legs, body, and face. He didn't feel fear; he could only feel pain. The last thing he saw before slipping into merciful darkness was a flash of lightning silhouetting Dent's grotesque, conflicting features, his arm poised for a finishing blow. The last thing he heard was Bruce's roar of unsuppressed rage as his mentor finally escaped from his bonds…_

Robin had paused for only a second. A second as his similar feelings of dread towards both Slade and Two-Face had eclipsed each other. But Slade had seized the opportunity: dropping the staff, he pulled the stained shuriken from a compartment in his forearm. The stunned boy would surely recover in a second, but the man was certain he'd need only a fraction of a second-

A sudden explosion shook the room. Pieces of plaster and heavy insulation flew out and battered the two enemies, sending them across the room and painfully into the far wall. Slade's aim with throwing daggers was deadly accurate to the extent that he could hit a fly from twenty feet away. Even while being propelled across a room, he still had the proficiency to impale Robin's right arm.

Fortunately, Robin didn't feel the blade pierce his arm. Still in his trancelike state, he hadn't been braced for the impact of the explosion. The force of it had abruptly snapped his head forward, sending him immediately into unconsciousness. He wasn't aware as an entire section of Tower fell out, sending Slade hurtling into the darkness and towards the ground below. And he wasn't aware of being pulled to safety by a gentle, albeit cold, dark blue energy that enveloped him.

He was only aware of the maniacal laughter that could reach him even in the deepest dwellings of his mind.

--Sorry, cliffie! For those who have read my stories before, you know I usually end a chapter in a cliffie. Hope everyone enjoyed the chapter!


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